Summary

Three cast iron lamp posts of 1848 design installed after 1890.

Description

Three former gas lamp posts, 1848 design with late C20 lanterns.

FORM: cast iron with a square base with embossed decoration featuring a Yorkshire rose set above a palmette to each face. Rising from the base is a tapering, reeded column topped by a palmette decorated bell capital. Above this are a pair of small lion heads flanked by ornately shaped ladder rests. Above, supported on a short shaft, is a modern reproduction of a ‘Windsor’ style lantern.

STREET SETTING: set along a cobbled, pedestrianized street flanked by the Grade II*- listed Royal Pump Room and the Grade II-listed 1-3 Crown Place.

History

Harrogate’s first 97 street lamps were installed by the Harrogate Gas Company in 1848 on behalf of the Improvement Commissioners (established in 1841, the forerunner of Harrogate’s local council), with further street lamps added in subsequent years. Historical records show that the provision of street lighting in the mid-C19 was a particular focus for the town’s early local authority, prompting much controversy in the years around 1850. Victorian photographs of lamp posts on Promenade Square, Chapel Street, at Christ Church and the Crown Hotel (all locations for lamp posts installed in 1848) show posts matching the design of the three now located along Crown Place. These lamp posts originally supported lanterns lit with open gas flames, these being generally replaced after 1898 with smaller ‘Windsor’ style lanterns with more efficient gas mantles, as shown in early C20 photographs. By 1970 Harrogate’s gas lamps had all been converted to electricity, generally with swan neck fittings, these subsequently replaced with more traditionally styled lanterns based on the ‘Windsor’ design.
The 1889-90 1:500 town plan of Harrogate shows that there were no lamp posts on Crown Place, although lamps did flank the southern entrance to the Royal Pump Room. It is not known when the lamp posts were installed along Crown Place.

Reasons for Listing

The lamp posts along Crown Place are listed for the following principal reasons:
* Decorative design: as good examples of Victorian mass-produced, functional yet decorative street furniture;
* Historical interest: as a marker of Harrogate’s C19 civic pride, the introduction of street lighting from 1848 being a particular focus of the town’s early local authority;
* Streetscape: for their strong visual contribution to the cobbled street flanked by listed Victorian buildings.

External Links

• Historic England Listing
• Wikidata Q26677879

External links are from the relevant listing authority and, where applicable, Wikidata. Wikidata IDs may be related buildings as well as this specific building. If you want to add or update a link, you will need to do so by editing the Wikidata entry.

Recommended Books

• 
  Listed Buildings, Conservation Areas and Monuments
• 
  [(Bedfordshire, Huntingdon and Peterborough)] [By (author) Nikolaus Pevsner] published on (January, 1968)
• 
  Planning (Listed Buildings and Conservation Areas) Act 1990
• 
  England's Post-War Listed Buildings
• 
  Oxfordshire (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  Northamptonshire: Buildings of England Series (Pevsner Architectural Guides) (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)